Tag: humor

Forever Robin To Me

On August 13, 2014

In movies, personal, poetry, remembrance, writing

Many people will remember where they were when they heard the awful news about the passing of Robin Williams. I had just returned from walking my dog; she enjoys trotting through the grass and being pet by the small children we inevitably run into; I enjoy the moody, orange streaks of a summer sunset and the cool early-evening breezes. We both return to the house refreshed and happy. But my calm, content mood went straight south when I opened my computer to see the update about Robin.

And it is “Robin” to me, it’s been “Robin” for a long time. I had the pleasure of spontaneously running into the man not once but twice when he was filming in Toronto almost a decade ago. There’s a strange intimacy that happens with some actors; Robin struck me as a quiet, thoughtful person, not even half the manic personality he was onstage, but more of a deeply sensitive, feeling artist, the cute, funny boy in school who used humor as a defense mechanism. Being funny was a way of expressing the tremendous energy and imagination he carried around inside him, continually incubating new ideas while keeping watch over his latest batch of squawking hatchlings. He was tremendously playful, and tremendously feeling, and, to me at least, he was somehow always in need of a hug. Within much of his wide and varied work lay a deep sense of vulnerability, which was deeply touching, even as it was occasionally hard to watch. Perhaps that’s why there was a odd sense of the familiar when we met, an immediate understanding that allowed each of us to come away from those impromptu chats gently beaming. I didn’t expect or ask anything of him, and he seemed relieved I wasn’t starstruck or asking him to be “zany.” It was just good to be around a very talented, very real human being. I often wonder if he had a radar to pick out us sensitive souls who appreciated his playfulness and understood its humanistic, deeply vulnerable origins.

Like so many, I grew up watching Robin, on television, and then in movies. His turn as the teacher in Dead Poets Society came at a vital moment when, as a frustrated high school student, I realized there were many different styles of teaching, and the one I was being exposed to in my own English class at the time was definitely lacking. (Thankfully, I got my own version of Mr. Keating a year later.) Many times since I find myself wishing he’d done a series of poetry readings —live, online, for radio; he had a depth of feeling for words, language and music, and used them to full (sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad) effect whenever he performed. His solo voice was just as powerful and memorable as his rubbery physicality. Oh, that he had read the poetry of Shelley into a microphone, or done a live performance of Ginsberg’s work. A million magical worlds lived in him and were given voice through his performances, worlds we were entranced, seduced, beguiled by. He allowed us to remember wonder, and to find our own.

Robin understood “funny” but he was keenly aware of what can lie underneath. Mrs. Doubtfire was uproariously funny (and still is, to my mind), but, like his character in The Birdcage, there’s an intense hurt shot through the performance, one you can keenly sense in those sad blue eyes, and it’s made repeated viewings of both movies difficult to endure. Funny! Sad! Funny! Sad! His mix of humor and drama, of light and dark, feels authentically human, and continued to be expressed in a variety of roles, with the darkness (particularly in One Hour Photo) providing a vital counterpoint to the more life-affirming material (Good Will Hunting, Patch Adams) that won him mainstream awards and accolades.

Robin’s movies have, in so many ways, been markers for moments in so many lives, the “I remember whens” over the last 48 hours collected and offered like sacrifices on the alter of a disease we can name but can’t quite approach. Since Monday night, I’ve debated with myself about posting anything on his passing, not only because I’ve had my own intense experiences of depression, but because I don’t want to equate them with his suffering. Do I have a right to analyze, compare, or contrast? No, and neither does anyone else. Robin’s depression was his own; his suicide is also his own. Impossible to condone, difficult to understand, his decision does bring into stark relief the deep, dark room many depressives (I count myself among them) move in and out of, with frustrating, sometimes exhausting regularity.

As such, it seemed important to me on a personal level not to jump on the journo-pageview-train and spew out something half-assed, half-baked, schmaltzy, trite, narcissistic, didactic, high-handed, or grief-splaining. The rush to reaction, to “thinkpiece” a tragedy, for clicks and shares and comments, makes me recoil at the perceived ethics (and unfortunate financial realities) of my chosen world. How do I bridge the need to report as a journalist with the need to think, feel, grieve, and contemplate as a human? I’m truly not sure it’s possible in today’s high-speed world. In many ways I’m still not sure why I’m writing this now. But having lost many people I love to depression, and having nearly succumbed myself, it seems right that perhaps shouting to the darkness will inspire something greater than words and links from the armchair-activists I’ve seen across social media lately. Something like acceptance, and compassion in action. As Robin himself wrote in a reddit AMA last year, “Anytime compassion can be contagious, it’s a good thing.” That, to me, is a contagion worth spreading, acting on, shouting about. We need it.”

It’s probably selfish of me to want more from Robin in terms of work — movie performances, television appearances, those taped poetry sessions — and yet I keep wishing for them. As someone wrote on my Facebook wall Monday night, “I thought and hoped this was a terrible hoax.” Robin’s light reminded at least this sensitive soul I wasn’t alone, that vulnerability is nothing to be ashamed of, that playfulness matters. Keeping these elements intact against a world filled with ugliness is difficult, sometimes painful, but I want to believe it isn’t impossible. It can’t be. Carpe diem, shazbot, good morning Vietnam… O Captain, my Captain. The rest is silence. Thank you, dearheart. x

Awful Funny

By Catherine Kustanczy

On May 7, 2012

In opera

This past week, I posted the cover of the New York Post on my Facebook wall. I shared it from another friend’s wall, a journalist friend in New York, who’d come across the “toasty” cover and, presumably, found it too horrible -and horribly amusing -not to share.

While the cover didn’t get too much reaction on my journo-friend’s wall, it lit a bonfire on mine. Some people howled at the hilarious awfulness, others howled in derision at the aggressive cruelty. It was interesting to note not only the nationalistic splits (Canadians, you really are a nice bunch, mostly) but the fact that some people reacted in such a personal manner. The incident forced reflection on my recent love of mean humor, something I never used to indulge in, perhaps out of guilt, anxiety, or a caustic mix of both.

Now, I’ve sat through some rough stand-up material involving the most blatant, stomach-churning sort of chauvinism; I’ve sat beside people I had deemed intelligent as they haw-haw-haw’d at sexual and racial cliches being exhaustively exploited. That sort of humor isn’t mean; it’s lazy. And the Post isn’t much different in its laziness – but the difference is, it’s agonizingly clever. That cleverness that makes urban smarty-pants types like me (who poo-poo the Post, rolling eyes and making yucky faces) feel ashamed at the vicarious thrill to be gained from enjoying the notoriously bad taste of the News Corp tabloid in their quest to outdo themselves each day with the clever-meets-queasy quotient of their covers. My journo-friend admitted the cover was “tame for (the Post).” Too true.

Dark humor is more prevalent in some cultures than others. Living in Ireland taught me how often it’s been used as a survival tactic, meant to provoke and polarize; that’s a big part of its effectiveness. At the moment, I’m reading Shalom Auslander’s Hope: A Tragedy (Riverhead), a book that’s chalk-a-block with dark humor, revolving around… the Holocaust, and what happens when the main character finds that a grown Anne Frank is living in his attic. Auslander mercilessly mocks -and shamelessly milks -a persistent, pernicious victim mentality as personified in both his main character as well as his mother. Upon the book’s release, author A.L. Kennedy observed that the book “will make very many people angry. It will also make very many people happy.”

Hope: A Tragedy makes me laugh, even as I gasp and feel slight pangs of guilt. Good, dark humor, when it’s done well, finds our weak spots and exploits them, as it should. The Post is not nearly as deep as this book, not by a long shot, but it is a cultural by-product of a human yearning (conscious or not) to be poked and prodded. Macabre humor isn’t only accepted but welcomed, especially by those of us who, having been bullied, beaten, and mocked, have emerged at the other end, with a ready smirk, triumphant, no longer victimized, but defiantly, vividly alive. At the end of the day, that is humor’s highest compliment, and its greatest achievement.

Laughter In The Dark

By Catherine Kustanczy

On December 16, 2010

In movies, video

The man behind one of my favorite movies of all time passed away today. I write one, but really, it’s a collection. Blake Edwards‘ influence was so massive in my life, it’s easy to lose track of what he did, when. Reading the excellent obituary in the New York Times, I’m struck by not only his influence cinematically but in a larger cultural sense.

Laughter was one of the foundations of my childhood. My memories of life as a little one are coloured by giggles, smiles, and sometimes, hard-to-control howling fits that frequently happened at the worst possible times (ie church, funerals, big weddings). Humour may be personal, but its effects are universal. When I was a kid, I had a direct through-line to experiencing primal emotions with somewhat astonishing rapidity: sadness came just as fast as fits of hilarity, to be quickly replaced by joy, anger, fear. Like some manic depressive hobbit, I’d cry if someone snapped at me and laugh until my stomach ached at the silly antics of the Marx brothers and, of course, Inspector Clouseau -whom my buddy hilariously imitated, felt moustache, fake accent, and cocked eyebrow in place. Forget The Pink Panther cartoon; I’d seen the real thing (thanks to my super-duper VCR) and I was hooked.

The 1964 movie A Shot In The Dark ranks as one of my favorite comedies. It’s a blend of child-like lunacy and very-adult sexiness. The story of Maria Gambrelli and the corrupt Parisiennes depicted within Edwards’ world delighted me, and indeed, still does. I didn’t get that sexual references as a kid, nor did I care -and really, it didn’t matter. I knew it was naughty without being gross, and I liked the kind of glamorous world Edwards seemed to be both mocking and milking in his work.

That intriguing mix -playing the game of high society/fame/notoriety/in-crowd while simultaneously, unapologetically riping it to shreds -found incredible expression through his famous early work, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961 -written by Truman Capote), through the Clouseau movies, into the mad, surreal world of The Party, and even into Edwards’ angry, cynical S.O.B. (the sight of Julie Andrew’s slurring “I’m going to show my boobies!” is one I’ll never forget); it also seeped into 1982’s Victor/Victoria, a movie I loved so much I wore out my tape from repeated viewings.

It was probably there that my fascination with gender began; what constitutes “female” / “male”? And why should it matter? Edwards’ work was, and remains, curiously subversive; it’s shrewd in its expression of the in-crowd as being both deliciosly desirable and disgustingly debauched, hailing and applauding the “new” and “daring” so long as it doesn’t threaten their power structure or upset any positions or expectations. Phooey to that, his work said, lightly, if with a knowing wink, ever well-dressed and classy.

What appealed when my cinematic appetites were still budding was the mix of madcap comedy and flair for the aesthetic, along with the unmissable trait that smart and beautiful were natural soul-mates. Elke Sommer’s Maria (in Shot) wasn’t stupid -just good at seeming like she was, especially to smitten men. In Victor/Victoria, Julie Andrews exuded a different, if no less potent form of sex appeal that clearly had roots in the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker. She played a poor pretty woman pretending to be a rich man who went onstage to be a glammy hot woman. (Oh, and she/he wound up having a macho-man fall in love with her/him.) It was funny; it was touching; it was in Paris and featured beautiful costumes, and amazing music. Casting Music Man Robert Preston as “Victor’s” impressario was genius. And yes, it was entertaining as all hell, but there existed within Victor/Victoria some important questions -ones we’re still grappling with, singing about, dancing around, and celebrating.

Blake Edwards will be remember in many different ways, by many different people. I remember him as being the filmmaker who taught me some of my earliest lessons about the nature of art, comedy, and what exactly Groucho Marx meant by not wanting to be a part of any club that would have me as a member. Amen to that, and thank you, Mr. Edwards. I’ll be watching A Shot In The Dark tonight, on my old VCR, laughing, smirking, and remembering.

Salty and Sweet

By Catherine Kustanczy

On August 20, 2010

In opera

First things first: don’t bring anyone who’s sensitive to the f-word to see How Now Mrs. Brown Cow. It gets a workout in the hands -make that mouth -of the formidable Mrs. Brown, also known as one Brendan O’Carroll, Irish comedian and super-performer. For two hours, any easily-offended ears will be singed by its extensive and creative usage.

It should be noted, however, that the word, within the context of the show, is made musical, magical, and even poetic. I mean, hell, it’s an Irish show -you have to expect the salty and the sweet, the dark and the light, the low and the high, the profound and the profane, all mashed up in one gorgeous, overwhelming package of funny, naughty, heart-tugging hilarity. How Now Mrs. Brown Cow is the fifth in the wildly popular Mrs. Brown series, which started life two decades ago as a radio series before extending into TV, movies, books, and videos. O’Carroll, donning a big wig, glasses, frumpy dress and dowdy shoes, takes on the persona of a working class Dublin mum. In this show, she’s readying her home for the family, including her beloved Priest-son Trevor, and tangling with her other three sons, daughter, and “granddad”, who becomes the unwitting guinea pig for Mrs. Brown and her friend Winnie (Eilish McHugh) to test mail order products on. The scene involving country music, a baking sheet, and a crash helmet is especially memorable; like the show itself, this single scene is a smart blend of dark humor and gleeful slapstick. Politically correct it ain’t, but funny… hells yes.

The humour extends itself to local references, with O’Carroll playing to both the Toronto crowd (with mentions of local discount store Honest Ed’s) and Irish expats (jokes about son Mark’s “Prod” wife abounded). Later I overheard an audience member remark that some of the show’s references were “too obscure” for most Canadians, which is true. Equally, O’Carroll’s portrayal of Rory (Rory Cowan), Mrs. Brown’s gay son, could be construed as stereotypical and offensive- but as I recall it, some Northside Dubliners (and indeed some Irish) have a pretty narrow idea and tolerance of homosexuality altogether. Should O’Carroll soften the writing? The Mrs. Brown series concerns rough people who say (and do) offensive things, many of which are specific to a cultural time and place. The write and director is full aware of the ridiculousness of Rory, and perhaps, knowingly, portrays partner Dino differently, clothing him not in gold lame pants, but suit trousers, like everyone else. To moan about the “offensiveness” of this show conveys a huge ignorance around Dublin culture, and, to be frank, a poe-faced Canadian seriousness that doesn’t match the larkish nature of the material. There are many other forms of entertainment that portray gay people (and others) in far more offensive ways; this show isn’t one of them.

Indeed, Mrs. Brown is fierce, feisty, and very, very funny -she’s no cuddly Mrs. Doubtfire or cutesy Golden Girl. She’s a lot closer to the tough Northside ladies I once knew (and would occasionally borrow hoovers, tin foil, and window cleaner, or buy fruit and veg from). Mrs. Brown’s shouts at the unseen drug-users outside her door -“injectin’ yer cannabis!” -may be momentarily funny, but reflect a darker reality, one those of us who lived in Dublin around that time vividly remember. Mrs. Brown is tough, loud, and weirdly, very real, with echoes of Dublin echoing with her every word, whether it’s a curse or a blessing.

The potent mix of dark and light is brought to the fore again and again, with sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching results. O’Carroll creates short, simple scenes involving friends and family to explore elementary, albeit timeless themes of human connection and bonding, especially in tough times. Part story, part sitcom, the material leaves plenty of room for improvisation, something that cast members take full advantage of. At last night’s North American premiere of How Now Mrs. Brown Cow (produced by Toronto’s Mirvish Productions at the historic Canon Theatre), cast members Danny O’Carroll (as local boy Buster Brady) and Gary Hollywood (as Dino Doyle, companion to Mr. Brown’s son Rory) couldn’t keep straight faces, as O’Carroll, consciously but keeping in character expertly chided them. One telling moment saw Hollywood’s lack of composure become so acute, he was doubled over hysterically laughing into his hands. Rather than being unprofessional or distracting, the reaction worked beautifully with his character’s extreme horror within the context of the scene. After all, extreme horror and extreme giggles really do look the same at a distance. Salty and sweet indeed. (And, for the record, O’Carroll’s deadpan response -in character -was, “I remember writing this – it wasn’t this feckin’ long.” Ha.)

Other moments where O’Carroll purposely broke the fourth wall included his character’s attempt to place a star atop the Brown Family Christmas tree. After trying a variety of chairs, s/he balanced on a railing in the set, and then took hold of the upper edge of the set itself. It was a good example of O’Carroll’s extreme, and extremely happy, disregard for theatrical convention. He definitely play with panto, with improvisation, and with his castmates in the most jovial of ways, but when it comes to delivering the more serious moments, there’s no horsing around. He goes straight for the heart, without any compromises. Talking with the lone daughter of the family, Cathy (Jennifer Gibney), Mrs. Brown delivers a heart-rending speech about the closeness of mothers and daughters, one that brings to mind possible parallels with fathers and sons, which is made all the more poignant with the knowledge of the comedian losing his own son some years ago. The square emphasis on family, and on the ties that bind between people, generations, faiths, lifestyles, and ideas, couldn’t be more apparent, F-bombs or not.

How Now Mrs. Brown Cow definitely has fun exploding a few proper theatrical conventions, but it also leaves you wondering just where you stand in terms of your relationship to family and those closest to you. Wandering down Victoria Street after the opening, I overheard comments confirming this connectedness. One man remarked to his friend that the title character “is so much like your own mum!” to which the man readily agreed, while another pair of friends noted that the show’s premise, with its mix of stress and joy, “looks just like our Christmas.” Several Irish grannies stood outside the stage door, one with a mobile phone to her ear.

“It’s lovely show, just grand,” one said, waving a cigarette around, “Now what time will you be over for dinner tomorrow?” Pause.

“Don’t be f*ckin’ late again.”

Good advice.